Tony Goldwyn: Male Privilege & Intimacy
Podcast Transcript Season 2 Episode 24
Interviewer: Liz Goldwyn
Illustration BY Black Women Animate
Today, our guest is Liz’s brother, Tony Goldwyn. Tony is an actor, director, producer and activist. He played United States President Fitzgerald Grant on ABC’s SCANDAL for 7 seasons, directed feature films, and has appeared on and off Broadway for over 25 years, most recently in Network. Tony and Liz discuss male privilege; their father’s sometimes “tough love” advice; appearing nude onstage and on screen; what it was like to become a sex symbol at 50 and how intimacy evolves with age.
The following is a transcript of the interview from the episode:
Liz:
Hi, Tony.
Tony:
Hi, Liz.
Liz:
I'm so excited that you're on our podcast.
Tony:
I am too.
Liz:
Where are you? You're in New York right now?
Tony:
Yeah, I'm in New York.
Liz:
And you've got a performance tonight, right?
Tony:
I do, that's right.
Liz:
What does it feel like? You're in the home stretch.
Tony:
Yeah, we have less than two weeks left after seven months. It's good. It's been a really amazing process. But I'm looking forward to being finished, but it's been great.
Liz:
What do you do to prepare for shows like that?
Tony:
Well, this particular show, Network, I need to stop everything else about two hours before. Honestly, I usually take a nap for a half an hour. I just need to power my head down to clear my brain so I can concentrate. Then I warm up my voice and just get to the theater about an hour early. It's a lot like meditation really. I have to be in that frame of mind to do decent work. So I just clear all the noise out of my head so I can focus.
Liz:
How do you calm down after a performance? Because it must be a lot of adrenaline.
Tony:
Alcohol usually. No, yeah, you have adrenaline for a couple hours after the show, so I have a drink or see a friend. At first I couldn't 'cause it's quite taxing, so you have to be really careful about your vocal health and stuff like that. But once I got into shape, yeah, I'll often go out for a drink or something after the show, or just come home and have some food and chill out.
Liz:
So I guess I've never actually asked you when you first realized that you wanted to be an actor.
Tony:
You haven't?
Liz:
No, I've never asked you. I mean I know that you were always, from what I've heard, 'cause you're much older than me.
Tony:
That's true.
Liz:
I've heard that you were a real ham as a kid, and I've seen pictures, but yeah. I've never asked you.
Tony:
Well, it's a pretty simple story. It was instantaneous. A couple of years before you were born when I was a freshman in high school, I auditioned for the school play when I got to high school. I did so really only because our brother, John, was into theater, and I wanted to do whatever he did. So that was something to do. I auditioned for this play called Inherit the Wind. The second I picked up the script and read with the drama teacher, it was like taking a drug or something. I didn't actually get the part I auditioned for, but I'll never forget that feeling. I just felt like for the first time in my life, I felt like I knew how to do something.
Liz:
And you know, I think a lot of people probably look at us, or our family, and immediately assume that there’s nepotism, but I'd love to dispel that myth because our father was definitely not encouraging of any of us really going into the movie business, and particularly not of you being an actor.
Tony:
Yeah, that's really true. I think it was two-fold with him. I think that he was scared shitless about the idea of ... I know in my case of becoming an actor, he thought that was scary as hell, with good reason. It's really hard. So part of it was a negative ... He was just scared, so he was negative about it. But only subliminally. I must say, he always said, "Look, whatever you want to do, I support you. If that's your passion, you do it and just do it seriously." But his anxiety created a real negative spin about it.
But then on the other hand, I think in a healthy way, whether he's right or wrong, he said, "If you're going to do this, you've got to do this on your own. I can't help you." I think it's both true, as an actor, there's not much you can do other than talk about it or give someone some perspective on what the industry is like. You can't really ... I mean I guess you could give someone a job, but if they don't have the ability, there's not much you can do to help them sustain a career. So his approach was, "Look, you're on your own. You've got to make this on your own."
Tony:
Actually, it was only hard because of what you said, because people assumed it was otherwise. So that was baggage that I had to process through in my earlier years of people making these assumptions and me going, "You know what? Honestly, this is really tough." But that's more of an ego thing, so I got over that.
Liz:
You’ve got to be John Travolta within a year, then you're going to be a ... Didn't he tell you something like that?
Tony:
He did say that. In 1978, I guess, I was a senior in high school, and I was auditioning, going up to San Francisco ... There's a great theater school, this theater in San Francisco, ACT. They have a summer program for high school and college kids, and so I went up to audition for that. He took me up for the weekend, and he said, "Look. I just need you to understand what this business is like." At that moment, John Travolta was the biggest movie star in the world, and he said, "If you're not John Travolta by the time you're 25, there's really no career to be had." I was stunned at hearing that. Something in my brain, I just went, "That's got to be bullshit. That can't be right." But it was hard to hear. That was his fear acting out. That was where his negativity was, I would say, unhelpful.
Liz:
But it was kind of like ... I feel like at least the fact that we really ... even though people assume we got this leg up, that we really ... he was almost ... he didn't even see Pretty Things, my first film, until I'd already sold it to HBO because I needed to get clearance to use a clip from one of our grandfather's movies, Ball of Fire. When he finished watching it he said, "You actually made a movie, kid." Then he said, "You know what I'm going to do for you? I'm only going to charge you $100 to license that footage."
Tony:
Oh my God, I remember that, yeah, yeah. Oh my God.
Liz:
So didn't even give it for free.
Tony:
... neurosis about it. He had a lot of neuroses, and then he ... With me, he was back and forth because he had tremendous anxiety and neurosis and a lot of unresolved feelings about his own place in the constellation. I'm not quite sure, I never have quite understood what it was, but tremendous pressure from his father and living up to that legacy. To the day he died, he never was able to make peace with it, I don't think. So I think that really infected his approach to all of us. He would say that to you, but at the same time, he was incredibly proud of what you had done. You know what I mean? And of your book that you've written after you did the movie. It seemed to me he was very, very negative and said some shockingly unsupportive things to me in my early years, but when I ... He was the person for me who said, "You should do more than be an actor. You should be a director. There's something about you. You have a broader ability than just being an actor." He's the one who pushed me to become a director, which opened up a whole new avenue for me in terms of my creative expression and career.
Tony:
I remember he had ... The first film that I made, A Walk on the Moon, I had given him the script four years before or something, when I was starting to develop it, and he dismissed it out of hand. But I kept working on it. Then when I made ... I showed him the first cut I had of the film, and he said the same thing that he said to you. He was stunned, and he said, "Wow, you made a movie about love." And from that moment, he was very supportive. I think he had matured too 'cause he was a bit older.
Liz:
And for those who haven't seen A Walk on the Moon, which was directed by Tony, it's fantastic and it stars Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen and Liev Schreiber. There's a very sexy love scene between Diane Lane and Viggo Mortensen, which I complained to you because you had her wearing a stretch blue-lace button-down shirt which was not historically accurate.
Tony:
Yeah I know you said it was not accurate. But-
Liz:
But besides that, it's a great film.
Tony:
I remember that, yeah, yeah.
Liz:
Obviously, you've made ... You've gone on to direct other movies as well. But I think maybe dad wanted you to just have more control. That was probably one of his fears is that being an actor, it's hard to have control.
Tony:
It's literally impossible to have control. I think if you become a big star, you have some control. But honestly, most of the big stars who exercise some control over their careers have tended to become producers or leveraged their power as stars to have more control. But being an actor is a very unstable profession.
Liz:
So, you know, I'm curious 'cause our dad was, let's say, how do I put this, somewhat of a lady's man. I was quite conscious of that from when I was a kid, but he never really sat me down and had the sex talk with me. Did he give you one?
Tony:
No! He was terrible about that. It's comical. No, my mother did. You and I are half brother and sister, and my mom, who was very open about sex, particularly for a woman of her generation, talked openly about it. Pop was like ... or dad, he was so uncomfortable. I remember I tried on multiple occasions at 10, 11, 12 years old, to talk to him about it, and he just ... he was just too uncomfortable. It was hilarious. I don't know why it's ... I guess his Catholic mother just shut him down.
Liz:
What were the kind of [unknown]?
Tony:
... with sex.
Liz:
He was obsessed with sex. It's weird 'cause he probably talked to me more. He talked to me about sex, but he didn't really talk to me about it when I was a kid in that way that a parent would have the talk. But he thought it was appropriate, for example, to take me and a friend to see a rough cut with David Lynch of Wild at Heart when we were 10, which I think at that time was going to be given an X-rating. He didn't think twice about whether that was appropriate. That friend wasn't allowed to come over and play anymore after school.
Tony:
That's hilarious. Yeah, that's funny. That's true. He was very liberal-minded in one set. I think, in a funny way, he was ... for someone who could be quite confrontational, he was very uncomfortable with confrontation. It's weird. In some ways he couldn't deal with things that were emotionally charged or emotionally difficult. It was hard for him to deal with that.
Liz:
Well, that's classic, I think. A lot of people can use sex as a way to avoid intimacy which they often feel uncomfortable with.
Tony:
I think that's really, really right.
Liz:
So, curious what your first love scene was on camera, or on stage.
Tony:
Isn't that funny. I almost don't remember. Geez, this is when I start reminding myself that I'm ... how old I am. I don't remember things. My first love scene was probably on stage in a play called The Sum of Us. It wasn't a full-on sex scene, but it was a make-out scene with a man. It was an Australian play about a relationship between a son and his father, and the son was gay, and the father was very accepting. Did you see that play? You were too young probably. God.
Liz:
I remember ... I don't think I saw it. I remember dad ... I know dad saw it.
Tony:
Yeah, you were young, you were 16. You were in high school I think. But anyway, it was a play about ... and there was a gay love scene in it, yeah, where ... so I think that was the first time of making out with a guy on a couch in front of people.
And then a sex scene, God. It might've been ... so funny, I can't ... in a movie, it would've been probably a film I did for Showtime in very early '90s with Gina Gershon. It was very graphic sexually. It was Griffin Dunne and Gina Gershon and I did this movie called Love Matters. Gina and I had these sex scenes where were basically naked for a week doing this very out-there sex scene. It was about a guy ... I played a guy who was basically a sexaholic, and he shows up at his best friend's house at the time when the best friend is going through a marital crisis, and I've just disappeared on my wife and shown up with this girl I've taken up and want to stay at their house. My wife is calling them. It's a drama. It was an interesting script. I don't know if the movie was any good, I can't remember.
Liz:
Was that your first love scene?
Tony:
... sex. Was that what?
Liz:
Was that your first nude scene too?
Tony:
Probably, yeah. Must've been. I was fully nude.
Liz:
Fully nude? How do you prepare for something like that?
Tony:
You take off your clothes.
Liz:
I mean, the first time you did that, I've [crosstalk 00:15:21]-
Tony:
You know, for me it's like being an actor is you're exposing yourself in many ways. So when it came to doing it physically, you just go, "Well, okay." As long as ... For me, as long as it's germane to the ... necessary for the story, I've never had a big problem with it. It's scary and you feel exposed and vulnerable and stuff, but you ... you want to know what the parameters are of the ... what the director's intent it, and you don't want to be exploited. I made a mistake in that film, actually. I'm pretty sure that was the first one. My attitude was like, "Well, screw it." Gina and I were ... they do what they do on films that people may know. They have ... you're only allowed to show certain bits, and there's no frontal nudity or frontal male nude, whatever it is. They give you these things to cover your genitals. It's a sock that a guy puts over his penis and stuff. To me, that always made me feel more self-conscious.
Gina and I had to literally ... there was one scene where we had this athletic sex all over this guy's house, and there was multiple locations. The way the director wanted to shoot it, was it was all going to be cut up into little quick cuts, but he [inaudible 00:16:46] this whole long sequence and did it on one roll of film for nine minutes, and we just went from one place to the next. It was just easier to be naked 'cause it took days to shoot, and he told us what he was going to see.
Anyway, in the finished version, he cut it down and it was all impressionistic, and it was quite erotic, but there wasn't anything that graphic about it. But apparently, and I never saw it, but I found out that Showtime had released a full-length version of that in Europe. And there was the full 9-minute version of the scene, and part of it I think there was frontal nudity, and I was like, "What?" So I felt like I got screwed on that, and was very cautious after that. I don't know how I got into that story.
Liz:
Do you know what? You know what I have to admit to you. I haven't actually seen Ghost, which is, I know, really blew up your career.
Tony:
That's a good movie.
Liz:
I don't like to see you die.
Tony:
Oh yeah, that does happen.
Liz:
I don't like to see you die, and you die so much. You get naked a lot, and you die. Like a lot.
Tony:
That's true. I died something like 12 times in movies.
Liz:
The Last Samurai, I went to the premiere with you, so I couldn't help seeing you die. But Ghost, everyone ... I remember I hear that you die a grisly death in that, and I feel like it would just be too much for me to handle.
Tony:
I died a grisly death in The Last Samurai too. I got impaled by a Samurai sword.
Liz:
I think I covered my eyes though.
Tony:
Speaking of you being squeamish and covering your eyes. I remember when you came... the one time I took my clothes off in a play, you came in and put your scarf over your head.
Liz:
You didn't tell me that you were going to be fully frontal nude in this play.
Tony:
I heard you screamed and covered your face.
Liz:
You're totally embellishing the story. I did not scream. I didn't scream, but you didn't warn me, and I was shocked. There was this woman sitting behind me in the play in an intermission, she tapped me on the shoulder and she said, "I know that you're Liz, I know you're Tony's sister, and I don't understand why you cover your eyes because didn't you see him naked all the time growing up?" I was like, "I don't know what kind of family you think I have. Sure, we're showbiz but we're not that showbiz." I don't know.
But you've been naked in... Is there a nude scene in this play I'm seeing next week?
Tony:
There's a graphic sex scene, but there's no nudity.
Liz:
Okay. But you're involved in the graphic sex?
Tony:
Yes, I'm involved. I'm one half of the graphic sex scene.
Liz:
What is it like being a sex symbol, Tony? I'm going to put you on the spot here, but ever since I was a kid, I have never not had a friend of any gender identification not have a crush on you. I've literally seen that from the time I was a kid that people ... And normally, I guess, I see it with female friends who are actors, that they're objectified, but it's a strange thing to have it be with my brother who I'm so close to. When was the first time you noticed that?
Tony:
Well, it's weird. The first time that idea became a thing for me, actually, was when I did that play I mentioned to you, The Sum of Us. It was a big hit in New York, and it was a huge thing with the gay community. I felt like I became very popular in the gay community as a sex ... I was 20 whatever. Then the play was quite emotionally meaningful at that time in the late '80s, early '90s, it was '89, '90 I think.
Liz:
The height of the AIDS crisis.
Tony:
It was the height of the AIDS crisis, and I think for a straight actor playing a gay character ... Anyway, I became very popular in the gay community. That was the first time I experienced that sexual focus on myself.
Then I didn't really think about it much. It never became a ... Honestly, it didn't really become something I was terribly conscious of, other than the fact that I was an actor and some of the sexual content in the material I did, until Scandal when, ironically, in my 50's I literally was presented in the press and stuff like that as a sex symbol. By that time, I just had a sense of humor about it. I was grateful for it. I was appreciative of it, but I ... It's not me. How do I view it? I view it like it's someone's fantasy version of me, so that's fine. That's part of the job that I do. I'm a storyteller, so people dial into that. They create a fantasy of how they want to see you.
Liz:
So we were just talking about scandal and, which was amazing, huge long run, but also transformed you into quite a sex symbol, which happened in your 50s, right? Or late forties when you started the show right
Tony:
I was 50 when it started. By that time I had a good sense of humor about it. Honestly, it made me uncomfortable when I was younger because it was very similar to the whole phenomenon of celebrity, which made me very uncomfortable because I was like, well, that's not me. So I sort of felt there was something dishonest about it. And so I shied away from it, and by the time I did scandal, I realized that I was okay with it. I was appreciative, I had a sense of humor about it, and I also realized that when you're in the public eye, whether it's sort of as a quote unquote sex symbol or a celebrity or I think it's similar with politicians or athletes whatever, you're a projection of someone's fantasy and they have created for themselves a two dimensional version of you that in all the other dimensions are filled in by their fantasy life.
I learned to be okay with that and that's fine. That's what it is, and that's what we do. I learned to accept that and be appreciative and have some grace with it, with an understanding that it wasn't real. If a woman was coming at me sexually or saying, Oh my God, I'm in love with you, or whatever it was like as fans do, I'm always polite, but I don't perceive that as being real. I think that's where people fall off the edge of the cliff if they're like this is about like, this is a real potential thing.
I think that people take advantage of it and then they project their own sexual fantasies onto this person that's coming at them. But it gets back to what you said of sex becoming a substitute for intimacy or a way of avoiding intimacy, becomes into something that is absolutely not real on either end, and both of us are alone in our own fantasy space. Once I kind of understood that I'm pretty comfortable with it. Sometimes it's a little embarrassing. Sometimes it's flattering and all that, but I'm pretty comfortable with it.
Liz:
What do you mean about celebrity? Like feeling like celebrity is dishonest?
Tony:
Initially I felt very uncomfortable with it because people would get all excited because they recognize me because I was in a movie or something like that. And I felt that they were endowing me with importance that I didn't earn or didn't deserve or sense of specialness that I didn't deserve. And I was like, I'm just an actor. I'm just a guy like you doing my job, and I was just super uncomfortable with that. It felt dishonest to me. I felt I'm no different. I remember years ago around the time that Ghost came out which was the first time I'd experienced celebrity, I was in the Italian Deli across from my house, and we'd go in and get food sometimes and this young guy whose dad owned the Deli, and he worked there and he was like, what are you doing? I said, well, I just came back, I was doing some job somewhere. And he was like, Oh man, your life must be just so amazing. And I said, no, not really. It's just a regular job.
It's not just a normal person. He's like, Hey, from where I'm standing behind the deli counter, your life's not normal. Oh, right, but I had to acknowledge that, it took me a long time to get comfortable with it, that thing of some are projecting specialness onto you and then one sense, it was like a healthy reaction to mine because it's very easy to go the other way and believe it, which is total nonsense, where you're like, yeah, I am special. I'm one of the chosen ones and that's the road to disaster.
Liz:
Well, on that way we were lucky growing up with a family that was around the movie business and kind of had a very much of like this is the job mentality about it and also the [crosstalk].
Tony:
And also, sorry, I want to add to that. I feel like it was drilled into us as little kids because we had a famous last name, that we are not entitled to feel special in any way because that did not entitle us to any sense of specialness, that was ethically something I felt very, to the point of almost neurosis, it was pounded into us.
Liz:
I'm very grateful for that actually. I'm grateful for dad's tough love mentality about a lot of things like that because I think, especially being in your position and coming into this massive success with scandal, which how many seasons did it run for?
Tony:
Seven.
Liz:
Seven seasons. And also I imagine like just in terms of the set, going back to the sex symbol for a bit, they must have quickly realize that fans wanted to see your abs and wanted to see those sex scenes between you and Carrie, and I'm sure that just got built into the scripts because you've got to please the audience. Right.
Tony:
I think it really did. I think that Shonda didn't know what the show was going to be and what their focus of the show was going to be. I remember my first conversation with her, she was like, look, you can be in it as much as you want or not. Like she was super flexible because I wasn't sure I wanted to commit to a long running series because it definitely limits what else you can do, and I like to direct and do other things. She sort of just very flexible and when I read that first script, one of the most compelling things about it was this suggested romance between Kerry Washington's character and mine, but it was just one kiss, and it was these two people that had an affair, but I don't know that Shonda knew that, that was going to become the kind of heartbeat of the show.
Carrie and I had really good chemistry, and it became the most opposite, provocative aspect of that show. So that's obviously audiences like that kind of thing, so she sort of leaned into that and people responded. It did end up becoming pretty dominant[inaudible 00:07:24] for a good chunk of the show.
Liz:
You've always had a strong sense of political and social activism and then all of a sudden you're on a show that takes place in Washington and you're the president of the United States. And I'm kind of curious how that dovetailed with your work off screen that you had been doing for years, particularly in regards to,[crosstalk 00:07:50]democracy.
Tony:
That's a really good question. I had tried from the first time that I, one of the ways that I dealt with my discomfort with celebrity was, it felt so shallow and sort of vapid. That I thought, well, no, but this also can be put to good use because it does give you some leverage. I started getting involved in social causes and stuff like that, but I must say scandal gave me the kind of platform that I had never had before, and by that time I had developed real relationships with a couple of nonprofits that I was really invested in and supportive of, and I've become fairly politically active and so suddenly playing the president of United States on a popular very topical mainstream television show was it super useful.
I could really use that to help shine a light on the things that I cared about. And I went for it, both in terms of I'm trying to use that platform to talk about criminal justice reform and my involvement with the innocence project or this other organization Americares that I'm now on the board up, which is a humanitarian relief organization, and then politics, I got very involved in Hillary Clinton's campaign and that was a really interesting experience but unfortunately it didn't turn out the way we expected it would, but[crosstalk 00:09:29]
Liz:
You were campaigning for her like every weekends. I remember. Weren't you doing a Broadway show also at that time? Or was it Scandal?
Tony:
No, I was doing Scandal.
Liz:
You were just flying across the country like every weekend to like campaign and living rooms?
Tony:
I had said to them when they reached out to me, I guess on some talk show early on, either a talk show or on a press line or something, before she had announced her candidacy, and someone said have you decided who you're going to support and the 2016 election. And I said, well, she hasn't declared, yet I won't say who it is because she hasn't declared her candidacy yet, but I have decided. It was a joke, and then a month or two later I got a message saying they had heard that and would I be interested in talking to them, and I met with them, and I said, look, I'm interested if it's in a substantive way. I don't want to just show up at events and post something on Instagram, but if you're interested in me being involved substantively, I really would like to help on that campaign stuff, and they were like, awesome, and they sent me to Iowa and I wrote a speech, and I did a lot of work on it and I kind of took to it.
Then as things started going, well, they kept sending me out, and I was willing to do it and I said, here are my weekends that I'm free, and we just made a schedule, and then I was traveling all over the place. I think I went to 14 or 15 different states, maybe more I can't remember. But it was a very interesting experience.
Liz:
Well, we have always said in our family that you the most diplomatic, you do have the scale of a policy politician.
Tony:
My nickname was Kissinger I recall. Volatile family.
Liz:
Volatile or just highly creative. I want to talk a little bit more about the innocence project though as well, which you've been actively involved with for a long time and also ended up becoming the subject of the third movie you directed.
Tony:
Right on the fourth movie.
Liz:
Fourth movie.
Tony:
Conviction. That all stemmed from Conviction, which was a film that I made a right before scandal happened with Hilary swank at Sam Rockwell. Conviction is the true story of a woman named Betty Anne Waters whose brother was convicted of murder in 1980, I can't believe I've forgotten. 1980, I think 82. Anyway Kenny waters was convicted of a murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole, and they had grown up extremely poor under very difficult circumstances in Massachusetts and both were uneducated. Betty left school in 10th grade, and she was the only person who believed her brother was innocent, and she'd promised him if he would stay alive, she would get him out somehow, and she ended up going back to school and becoming an attorney, going to law school, and becoming an attorney and finally getting him out with DNA evidence, with the help of this organization called the Innocence Project.
And the Innocence Project pioneered the use of DNA evidence to prove innocence. It turns out of course that there were hundreds of thousands of people in prison for crimes that they did not commit. I first heard about the innocence project when I was started developing that movie, and it took us quite awhile to get the movie off the ground, which we finally did. But in that time I was just very emotionally affected by the stories of the wrongfully convicted, and to realize how broken our criminal justice system is. And the innocence project now has grown into this very important organization on the forefront of criminal justice reform in this country beyond just getting people out who are innocent it also work putting tremendous resources into preventing wrongful incarceration and to fixing what's wrong with our system.
Liz:
And particularly wrongful incarceration of black Americans.
Tony:
There are lots of reasons why wrongful incarceration happens and primarily to people of color and people without financial resources and education. In terms of forced confessions and prosecutorial misconduct and bad junk science that's used in courtrooms and eye witness misidentification, there's all kinds of things that cause wrongful incarceration. So the innocence project has really been making really important strides in changing what's very wrong with our system.
Liz:
Well going back to Hollywood for a minute, because I feel that you do do a lot of self reflection, and the last couple of years of Hollywood's reckoning with me too, and time's up have I think changed the way that especially I've noticed men consider privilege. Um, I don't white male privilege was a thing that people considered in Hollywood up until the last couple of years. And I'm sort of curious how that's affected the way that, you've thought about that, or you've considered that
Tony:
It's affected it enormously. I always liked to view myself as being a feminist and being most recent terms is woke but, I really had to hold a mirror up to myself in ways that I'm not. We know what is my responsibility in this, conversation. And then there is these relationships are both as someone's father, as a husband, as a friend, as an employer, as an employee, as a colleague and then simply because I'm in the professional men as a public person. What makes me uncomfortable on a daily basis is all of the ways that I have sort of unconscious bias or unconscious sense of privilege that I wasn't coughing to or it's something that I think is really important, and I think that it's this key to progress on this issue that all of us, particularly men, start to take responsibility and to hold ourselves accountable to ways in which, and it's not about feeling guilty because guilt is a, a waste of time. It's about what you're doing and how you're acting and how you're interacting.
The whole thing about unwanted physical attention and contact. Well, I do the same thing.
Liz:
What do you mean you do the same thing?
Tony:
Well, I'm a very physical person, and I touch women all the time, and I wrote this piece in style was it, last year about the whole times up movement and in it, I made reference to the fact of I'm very physical, and I went up to Bellamy Young, my dear friend and scandal castmate and I was like, you how I'm physical, and I'm always touching you and hugging you, does that make you uncomfortable? And she's like, no sweetie I do the same thing to you. But I am suddenly conscious of it that, I was doing a lot and now I'm really careful about it.
I noticed, in the show that I'm doing and network, one day I was backstage, and I had my hand on one of our company members and like as I walked by, or we were sort of saying hello, and I moved by her and I had my hand on her waist as I passed her, sort of like affectionate, intimate, but my hand was on her waist, and I sort of grazed over her stomach, as I was passing by her and it was just kind of physically affectionate and intimate and I would never have given that a thought in the past, and I always would have thought, that's nice. Right? Because of the story I think I was like, that might have been utterly unwelcome and made her feel really uncomfortable.
Then one of the lead actors in this play was putting his hands on her and she's not a close friend of mine, I would say a close colleague but not someone I know well. And I don't know if it made her uncomfortable. That was a typical example of something that I did unconsciously that I've stopped doing that. I may either directly ask someone or there may be code that I will be paying attention to where I feel it is welcome to touch someone, but I'm careful about it, and I'm constantly trying to have that conversation because I find it very uncomfortable to like ask someone, is it okay if I touch you here? Like that's not cool either. What languages and what codes do we use to know when something is welcome? Because it's not just intent that matters.
Liz:
Well, I think it is okay to ask those questions actually .
Tony:
Maybe it is. I haven't quite figured out how to do that, so I just don't do it, which maybe is the right answer.
Liz:
I'm not saying this as your sister, but I will say I feel like you've always been, at least for me, someone that's been very sensitive new age man in my life, someone that I've turned to, and I've been able to talk to throughout. We have a very open relationship when it comes to talking about sex. Definitely more open than I have with any of my other three, there's four brothers. And I've always felt that you've gone out of your way to try to look at things from my perspective and try to look at things from, be empathetic towards women. I think that the idea of male privilege doesn't just extend to touching, it extends to like economic opportunities. You've been lucky in that you've worked for Shonda Rhimes, female show runner for so many years. I mean, that's like probably really eyeopening to in terms of the way that she builds her writer's room, and she builds her production company.
Tony:
Yes. Everything about the culture of what she does it on. But I also have, been very aware of that my whole adult life because, being married to Jane who was very successful, and when she came into adulthood, she did so in a very male world, first in the world of a male athletics of collegiate athletics where she experienced really intense discrimination and harassment and fought through that right after title nine passed, and then entered the film business as a designer and very much in a man's world and was being paid less and being treated in all of the ways that have become cliche and fought her way to it, sort of through that. So I was always super conscious of it.
And for the first several years we were together, Jane made more money than me and then that rebalanced itself. I feel like I've always been aware of it, but I also as I look back there've been many unconscious ways that I exercised male privilege without even knowing I was doing it, in my marriage and in my relationships. I figure if I'm doing that in front of someone who tries to be pretty conscious and always has been, men have a lot of work to do, because I think I'm probably the higher end of the evolution's spectrum regarding that issue.
Liz:
How do you work on your evolution?
Tony:
By being willing to be uncomfortable I think, and asking questions that you don't find is very similar to conversations around racial privilege and white privilege. The other thing is activism, and I don't mean activism necessarily with a capital a, I mean, you know, like what are you doing to improve the situation in real life examples? Are you, because I confronted myself daily about my white privilege as well my white male privilege is insane. And the benefits that I get from being a white man in our society, and a privileged white man, born into privilege, like in so many levels. So I could spend all of my time feeling guilty and bad about myself. But that's what it's known as, white fragility. I try, and go because wait, what am I doing? How is my interacting improving the situation, what am I doing?
Because, when I'm not exercising dynamic interaction on these issues then I'm just contributing to the problem. We do it in very small microwaves in the way that we relate to people in our lives, the way that, being conscious and then very purposeful in your in what you're doing and not reinforcing negative patterns and systemic patterns and being willing to go, well, look what this is doing. And they're endless the ways in which these things revealed themselves.
Liz:
So at this point in your career, how do you define success? And is it even related to career for you?
Tony:
Yeah, no, it is definitely, I have to be careful about it because, now I'm in a thing where I'm also very conscious of the balance in my life because, we get so career focused that you can be on a bit of a treadmill where you need that validation of being constantly validate, reinforced by the outside world. But you have value, and that's not necessarily so helpful or doesn't give you what you think you're going to get. For me, honestly, success has to do with our creative flow, where I have a sense of flow, and I'm regularly being challenged and means consistently working with people who, challenged me and where I feel like I'm working on a high level with people who I really respect.
It is financial to some degree. I feel like I'm being competent and in a way that is good. Like when I'm working in the theater, money's not a part of it, but the fact that I can take care of my family and stuff that's significant and being in the game is fun and important to me too. I am not going to lie, that's important, but it really is about creating a flow of challenging work that keeps me growing. And I know that's what makes me feel successful. Even if I have the other supposed trappings of success, those don't make me feel as fulfilled and happy and good as the deeper kinds of things. So that's what I try and keep my attention on even though sometimes it's hard.
Liz:
So I have one last question for you, Tony. What are you still learning about sex?
Tony:
Wow. I think what I'm learning about sex is the relationship between sex and deep human relationship. In other words, someone once said sex is a metaphor. It's a metaphor for power. It can be a metaphor for intimacy or human connection. And at the same time it can actually be the thing itself. I'm always like dealing with the duality of sex as a kind of like, thrilling, fun, adventurous activity, sort of playful adventurous activity, but as something that is ultimately, the tension is on finding a deeper connection with a human being. I'm in a marriage of 32 years.
Liz:
Wow. Has it been 32 years?
Tony:
Yeah. This year is 32 years. The jam together for 38.
Liz:
Wow.
Tony:
So we're always having to kind of like reinvent our relationship to that end. Living with someone that long, you know very well. So it's not always about like, wow, let's find something new, it's not different, so you have a much more, a subtle, your attention on something different, I think to have it be fulfilling and a subtler kind of relationship with it. And, sometimes, whereas maybe for a long time, I always thought that you had to insist on the other thing all the time. I'm sort of learning like, no, that's not really essential. And how do you balance those things? It is important that playful, adventurous part of sex. But there's a kind of a duality to it so that it just, it doesn't just become a metaphor for it. It actually is the thing itself are because it is profound, and it's one of the ways we most connect with, our most intimate person in our life
Liz:
Is the most intimate person in our life, ourselves or another person?
Tony:
My most intimate person in my life is myself for sure.
Liz:
Some people think the idea of sex is all about how you're relating to another person, but if you're not sort of evolving personally in terms of exploring your sexuality or being attuned to it and then it's hard to connect with another person.
Tony:
Yeah. And it is, it's hard and we change. I don't have any answers. I think that it's a growth process, like all relationships, and we're growing with our, for myself, when I'm feeling centered in my life, I'm always in a growth attitude, orientation toward life. And one of the most important ways we do that is in relationship to other people. When our relationship with our partners, our lovers, our life partners or of our lovers with our children, with our siblings, with, they're our closest friends, you know, with people we are most intimate with all of those are from like age it's a growth if we're utilizing them right.
It's why there's a real danger in the way that our culture is these days, with social media and with our phones and everything. We have this volume of interaction, but all of it is paper thin and it's all metaphorical, back to the idea of sex as a metaphor. Human contact is become a metaphor or a social media is a metaphor for human contact. We're not actually interacting with anybody. I mean very slightly with our friends, like showing pictures and sharing our lives and that's all awesome.
But, I think it's very hazardous and because we're interacting with so many people, sometimes thousands or millions of people that we have to be damn sure we're also having actual deep interaction with the handful of people that actually enhance our personal growth and whose growth we enhance because that's our actual support system that I think that's why there is a lot of loneliness and sense of disconnection than that in a world.
Liz:
So it goes back to intimacy.
Tony:
Yeah.And intimacy. It takes a lot of forms, and is something I'm fascinated with and always trying to explore in my work and in my relationships. And yeah.
Liz:
Well, thank you so much for talking to me,
Tony:
This is fun Liz, and thanks for asking me to be on your podcast. I'm very honored.